Thursday, August 07, 2003

Borrowed words and pronunciation:
By Rajeev Srinivasan (rediff.com)

"For those of us who are challenged in Arabic and Persian, like me, there may be some hope: I read recently of an Urdu-Hindi dictionary. I hope Hindis use this to replace Arabic/Persian words with perfectly good Sanskrit-derived ones, which we poor Southerners can also understand. For instance, I think prem would be a fine substitute for ishq. After glancing at Hindi film posters for years, I still have no idea what qayamat means. I should buy that dictionary."